Georgie Allen – Cape Town’s most down-at-heel lawyer – is back, and this time he’s … Well, actually, he’s doing just fine. That is if fine can be classified as taking on a case for a promiscuous professor who may or may not have murdered one of his students, dealing with South Africa’s first gay divorce, and coping with feelings of inadequacy thanks to the hotshot attorney he’s hired to pick up the slack at his office. On the upside, his relationship with the Witch, his sharp-talking ex lover, is on a better footing, but that’s only because she’s unaware of his burgeoning relationship with her clerk, Carmen.

 

But Georgie’s messy love life and even messier practice are put into perspective when he receives a panicked call from his brother, gung-ho game ranger, Greg. One of Greg’s clients - a twelve-year-old child - has been blinded in a horrific hyena attack, and the victim’s parents are accusing Greg of negligence. With his brother’s career on the line, Georgie heads into the Botswanan bush to investigate, accompanied by his ever-present sidekick, feisty Scottish Advocate Patrick McLennan (aka the Poison Dwarf). While there, the twosome face adversaries even the Poison Dwarf finds hard to handle, and Georgie finds out that the courtroom isn’t the only place where his adversaries like to fight dirty.

 

 

Sarah Lotz is the author of Pompidou Posse and Exhibit A, published by Penguin SA in 2008 and 2009 respectively.

She works as a screen-writer for Clockwork Zoo, Africa’s largest animation studio, and lives in Cape Town.